Night at the Crossroads (1932)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Night at the Crossroads (1932) – J. Renoir

Long before the mystery movie became standard fare – and predating film noir by a good decade or so -- Jean Renoir directed this Inspector Maigret mystery (from Georges Simenon). It’s an early sound film but it doesn’t feel stagebound – instead, the camera is out and about in the countryside, or more specifically, a muddy suburb of Paris where a few houses cluster around a dodgy petrol station and garage. We’re introduced to the community gradually – we don’t actually see Maigret (Pierre Renoir, the director’s brother) until the murder/robbery is discovered – but the characters we meet quickly turn on an immigrant couple (from Denmark) as chief suspects (based on xenophobia alone, it seems). But Maigret and his team soon realise that Carl Anderson is probably innocent and Maigret heads out to the suburb to get the lay of the land. Carl’s sister (played by Winna Winifried) hangs all over Maigret and other suspects act suspiciously. And then a strange thing happens – either a reel is missing or Renoir neglected to film some scenes (reports differ). Maigret closes in on the villain(s), there is a car chase, and the case is wrapped up.  Yet Renoir has captured a mood, shooting often at night, and although the mystery turns out not to matter as much, the film showcases Renoir’s talent and fits (between La Chienne, 1931, and Boudu Saved from Drowning, 1932) nicely into his amazing streak of masterpieces and near-masterpieces of the 1930s (topped off by The Grand Illusion, 1937, and The Rules of the Game, 1939). Although not the rare lost treasure I had hoped to discover, still a solid entry in the canon.

 

School of Rock (2003)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

School of Rock (2003) – R. Linklater

Somehow, I went 20 years without seeing this film, not for any particular reason other than that it seemed like a kids’ film and I am an adult. Now that my kids are old enough, it happened.  Jack Black plays Dewey Finn, a perpetual adolescent who has just been kicked out of his classic rock band and just before the city’s battle of the bands is about to begin. He’s also about to be kicked out of his apartment, if he can’t get together his share of the rent.  So, when the principal (Joan Cusack) of a prestigious prep school calls looking to offer his roommate (screenwriter Mike White) a substitute teaching job, Dewey decides to take the gig, masquerading as his friend (“Mr. S.”).  Of course, he doesn’t know how to teach, but what he does know is ROCK.  You really need to have a high tolerance for Jack Black and his schtick to enjoy this movie – personally, I like him, so it worked for me, but it is definitely all high-octane goofy improv action. (Director Richard Linklater must have been a fan of Tenacious D.). Basically, Dewey takes his 5^th grade class and teaches them to be a rock band who he imagines will eventually back him in the battle-of-the-bands. It’s your traditional bad-news-bears-styled plot, the underdogs make good: you’ve seen it before. The kids vary in their performances but no one is too terribly cringe-worthy and under Linklater’s expert direction, some heartstrings are pulled. Classic rock fills the soundtrack.  It’s a feel good affair, occasionally funny, and good for 5^th grade kids (and not bad for parents).

 

Amsterdam (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Amsterdam (2022) – D. O. Russell

I was 2/3 of the way through Amsterdam before I realized that Christian Bale was channeling Peter Falk (that voice!) but the fact that his character (a doctor and WWI vet) also has a glass eye should have tipped me off.  “Why Falk?” remains a mystery although it sounds like the kind of challenge Bale or director David O. Russell might come up with for themselves. It is a very quirky film! We begin around 1930 with Burt Berendsen (Bale) and his African American lawyer friend Harold Woodman (John David Washington) called to perform an autopsy on their former WWI military commander General Bill Meekins who has died under suspicious circumstances. But when they attempt to report the results to his daughter, they soon find themselves charged with murder and on the run from the law.  At this point, the film flashes back to WWI and we get Burt and Harold’s backstory and we are introduced to Valerie (Margot Robbie), their Jules & Jim-styled partner/love interest/friend. She arranges for them to escape the Argonne to Amsterdam where they live a carefree life (free from the prejudices and judgment of America, including Burt’s wife and in-laws). They also run into two spies (Mike Myers and Michael Shannon) who know Valerie (and who feature later in the plot). Eventually, however, Burt feels the need to return to the US where he sets up a practice helping down-and-out veterans and Harold soon joins him there to offer legal support.  At this stage, we return to the “present” and follow the pair as they try to clear their names and figure out who killed Meekins. This takes the film into a more political direction, alluding to some true events that raise the spectre of American fascism in the 1930s/40s (and, of course, in the present too). Of course, Valerie returns to join in the action. The film itself is a star-studded well-staged period piece that rambles merrily along but never gains enough momentum to make its big finale pay off. That said, I enjoyed it (and can’t believe it is the first David O. Russell film in seven years).

The Fallen Sparrow (1943)

☆ ☆ ☆ 

The Fallen Sparrow (1943) – R. Wallace

Things begin well for this wartime noir, with John Garfield starring as John McKittrick, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War who has just returned to New York (with PTSD) to try to get to the bottom of the mysterious death of one of his buddies. He’s not a cop himself but his father was a famous one and so was his buddy who he knows did not commit suicide. To solve the murder, he begins mixing in the posh social circle that surrounded his friend at the time of his death, including with an elderly prince and his adult granddaughter (played by Maureen O’Hara). His attention soon focuses on two refugees from Norway, played by Walter Slezak (in a wheelchair) and Hugh Beaumont, but one, two, or three femme fatales may also be guilty (O’Hara, Patricia Morison, or Martha O’Driscoll). However, just as we begin to understand how McKittrick himself figures in the plot (why he was tortured in a Spanish prison and how this relates to his friend’s death), we also start to question whether his judgment is affected by the PTSD that resulted. He keeps hearing a limping man, perhaps the same limping man he heard coming down the hall from his dark cell or perhaps just a recurring traumatic memory. Unfortunately, this tantalizing ambiguity slowly dissolves into a muddled plot where it is hard to keep the various side characters and their motivations straight (until the villain is revealed and it all seems so obvious). Yet, through it all, Garfield holds his blustery own as McKittrick, a noir protagonist navigating through a confusing world, questioning his own sanity but gifted with a moral compass that guides him through even to the final scene where he must do the right thing.

  

Vampire Circus (1972)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Vampire Circus (1972) – R. Young

Late Hammer entry with more graphic violence and nudity than earlier allowed by the censors. The opening is unnervingly creepy, featuring a young girl being kidnapped and offered to the local vampire count (for snacking) by a woman clearly under his influence. The woman’s husband gathers a posse and they drive a stake through the count’s heart and burn down his castle. His last words are a curse that he places on the village and all of the descendants of his attackers.  Fast forward 15 years and the village has been quarantined because of the plague – no one can get in or out because of a roadblock.  However, a mysterious circus does arrive and soon people are disappearing. We know that the circus contains vampires who can shapeshift into wild animals but it takes the villagers a while to figure this out. Somehow the blood of the villagers is also able to be used to resurrect the long dead count who seeks a final showdown. The production feels slightly looser and shaggier than your usual Hammer outing and things do get pretty weird. The absence of any recognizable actors also tilts this away from the Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee era – perhaps they would have seemed out of place although stronger acting would have helped here. An early 70s curio but not without interest.

 

See How They Run (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

See How They Run (2022) – T. George

I watched this on an airplane when I was too tired to watch anything more substantive. Even so, the film left me feeling that I’d probably wasted my time. I’m sure it sounded great in the pitching process: A postmodern self-aware take on Knives Out and the latest craze for Agatha Christie styled whodunnits that actually finds its murder victim in the theatre that houses Christie’s long-running play The Mousetrap in 1950s London (and features the Dame herself as a character). And on top of that, let’s do it in the style of Wes Anderson! Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan do their noble best as the detectives on the case and the result isn’t necessarily a bad film; let’s just say it is a superfluous film.  Apart from victim Adrien Brody who goes over-the-top as a film director hired to adapt the play, most of the cast plays things straight while also delivering ironic lines and plentiful “easter eggs” that reward those who know the Agatha oeuvre. The film delights in teasing the audience by revealing elements from the adaptation of The Mousetrap that later turn out to be relevant to the “real” case too.  Rockwell might act like a less buffoonish Inspector Clouseau but he actually solves the case, more or less, although not without the help of Ronan, despite her willingness to jump to conclusions. As a fan of the old Sherlock Holmes and Charlie Chan series of the 30s and 40s, I wouldn’t have minded having all of the suspects gathered into a room and the killer identified by our detectives – but this film tries too hard to mock the old conventions (and play by them too). A trifle (but Saoirse Ronan is certainly engaging).  

 

Triangle of Sadness (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Triangle of Sadness (2022) – R. Östlund

Every once in a while, a film comes by that, although highly regarded by others, rubs me the wrong way. With Triangle of Sadness, a satire-of-sorts about social class from Swedish director Ruben Östlund, it isn’t the film’s message that bothered me (I’m all for taking the rich down a peg and exposing the lengths others will go to in order to curry favour with them or to move up in the pecking order).  Instead, it is just too facile, obvious, and trying hard to shock or provoke. I just didn’t find the (black) comedy very funny. The film is constructed in three parts: 1) Yaya and Carl; 2) The Yacht; and 3) The Island.  The first part is an extended awkward argument about money between two models (that also ropes in gender roles). It creates some anxiety and tension, partly about their relationship and partly about “political correctness”, but it is also boring and annoying. The second part finds these two models on a luxury cruise with a lot of other boorish rich people who act in self-absorbed and insensitive ways toward the staff on the ship. Drunken Marxist Captain Woody Harrelson gets into a pissing contest with a drunken Russian capitalist.  This sequence includes a lot of gross-out humour and frankly goes on way too long. The third sequence is the best and features a role reversal whereby the shipwrecked people from the yacht can’t fend for themselves and need to rely on the previously low status “hired help” to take care of them – the newly elevated toilet cleaner now has the opportunity to turn the tables and lord it over the dumb rich folks (and reap some selfish rewards of her own).  There are a few interesting “truths” investigated here but it is too little too late.  Your mileage may vary.